Amir Naderi's "CUT" Press Conference

Amir Naderi

Amir Naderi (Persian: امیر نادری, born 15 August, 1946 in Abadan) is a notable Iranian film director, screenwriter and one of the most influential figures of 20th-century Persian cinema. Naderi developed his knowledge of cinema by watching films at the theater where he worked as a boy, reading film criticism, and making relationships with leading film critics. He began his career with still photography for some notable Iranian features. In the 1970s, Naderi turned to directing, and made some of the most important features of the New Iranian Cinema. In 1971, his directorial debut, Goodbye Friend was released in Iran. Mr. Naderi first came into the international spotlight with films that are now known as cinema classics, The Runner (1985), and Water, Wind, Dust (1989). The Runner is considered by many critics to be one of the most influential films of the past quarter century. After a number of his films were banned by the Iranian government, Mr. Naderi left the country. Expatriating to New York, Mr. Naderi continued to produce new work. He was named a Rockefeller Film and Video fellow in 1997, and has served as an artist in residence and instructor at Columbia University, the University of Las Vegas, and New York's School of Visual Arts. His U.S. films have premiered at the Film Society of Lincoln Center/MOMA's New Films New Director's series, the Venice, Cannes, Sundance and Tribeca Film Festivals. His last feature, Sound Barrier (2005) won the prestigious Roberto Rossellini Prize at the Rome Film Festival. Mr Naderi should come back in great shape in 2011 with CUT. Starring Hidetoshi Nishijima and Takako Tokiwa, CUT laments the collapse of Japanese cinema through the gripping tale of a young filmmaker giving it all to make his next movie.

Due to smaller distribution and advertising budgets, Mr. Naderi's films are not as well known as most Hollywood films. Despite that and the lack of recognizable actors in most of his films, his work tends to find distribution (mainly in Europe and Japan), and he has earned a great deal of critical acclaim. Mr. Naderi’s films and photography are also frequently the subject of retrospectives at major festivals and museums throughout the world. Lincoln Center in New York, the city that has been his home for the past 20 years, offered a complete retrospective of his work in 2001, as did the International Museum of Cinema in Turin, Italy in 2006. The most recent retrospective of his work was screened at the Pusan International Film Festival, the largest in Asia. Mr. Naderi has served as a jury member of international film festivals for over a decade. (From Wikipedia)

Influential Iranian filmmaker Amir Naderi’s internationally funded, Tokyo-set produc­tion is not your average slice-of-life tale. Fiercely unconventional, Cut stole Naderi away from his (semi-)native New York and planted him in the middle of a unique fund­ing scheme. The aptly named Tokyo Story, a production outfit consisting of two bank­ers with a lot of bright ideas, found a way to dodge big-industry bucks, keeping Cut independent and one hundred per cent real. Besides, what big studio would dare make a film about the end of cinema?

Using stark black-and-white imagery and a raw, digital aesthetic, Cut tells the story of Shuji (Hidetoshi Nishijima), an unknown filmmaker who craves great cinema like a junkie dying for a fix. The only problem, he figures, is that great films are dead — unless he can find a way to make them himself. Shuji seeks solace on rooftops or in grave­yards, where he preaches the gospel of the old film classics with the manic energy of a television evangelist to whoever will listen. The only thing that regularly quells his mania is the sound of his 16mm projec­tor playing the works of Kurosawa, Ozu or Mizoguchi at the weekly screenings he hosts above his apartment. That is, until two thugs suddenly appear and drag him away.

Much like his leading man, Naderi received his cinematic education by devour­ing golden oldies and forming relationships with notable film critics who later prompted him to become part of the New Iranian Cinema and benefit from its increasing international reach. However, unlike Naderi, Shuji only ever manages to make a few forgettable films that almost no one sees. These films are financed exclusively by his obliging brother, who borrows money from the yakuza. When the gang demands their debt be cleared, Shuji puts his love for mov­ies to the test, offering to work as a human punching bag. It’s a role that could easily cost him his life — or maybe, just maybe, earn him enough self-respect to make another movie. A great one. (From tiff.)

  



Navab, Tehran

Hossein Edalatkhah: Iranian Homoerotic Art

Hossein Edalatkhah was born in Iran in 1979. He lives in Turkey now and holds exhibitions all over the world. His works are represent his protest against undemocratic and discriminating societies and governments especially the current Iranian government. The artist states, "My body is my source to protest against the governmental propaganda. In my collection I decided to look back to my history so you can witness Safavieh, Qajar, Pahlavi, and Islamic Republic periods."

Shah of Iran Interviewed by David Frost in 1979

   

"Talking With A Shadow" by Khosrow Sinai (2005)

Talking With A Shadow is a movie about the renowned Iranian writer Sadegh Hedayat.



Sadegh Hedayat



Sadegh (also spelled as Sadeq) Hedayat (in Persian: صادق هدایت; February 17, 1903, Tehran — 4 April 1951, Paris, France) was Iran's foremost modern writer of prose fiction and short stories.

Hedayat was born into a Iranian aristocratic family in Tehran and was educated at Collège Saint-Louis (French catholic school) and Dar ol-Fonoon (1914–1916). In 1925, he was among a selected few students who travelled to Europe to continue their studies. There, he initially went on to study engineering in Belgium, after a year he gave this up to study architecture in France. While there, he gave up architecture to pursue dentistry. In this period he became acquainted with Therese, a Parisian with whom he had a love affair. In 1927 Hedayat attempted suicide by throwing himself into the river Marne, however he was rescued by a fishing boat. After four years in France and Belgium, he finally surrendered his scholarship and returned home in the summer of 1930 without receiving a degree. In Iran he held various jobs for short periods.

Hedayat subsequently devoted his whole life to studying Western literature and to learning and investigating Iranian history and folklore. The works of Rainer Maria Rilke, Edgar Allan Poe, Franz Kafka, Anton Chekhov and Guy de Maupassant intrigued him the most. During his short literary life span, Hedayat published a substantial number of short stories and novelettes, two historical dramas, a play, a travelogue, and a collection of satirical parodies and sketches. His writings also include numerous literary criticisms, studies in Persian folklore, and many translations from Middle Persian and French. He is credited with having brought Persian language and literature into the mainstream of international contemporary writing. There is no doubt that Hedayat was the most modern of all modern writers in Iran. Yet, for Hedayat, modernity was not just a question of scientific rationality or a pure imitation of European values.

In his later years, feeling the socio-political problems of the time, Hedayat started attacking the two major causes of Iran's decimation, the monarchy and the clergy, and through his stories he tried to impute the deafness and blindness of the nation to the abuses of these two major powers. Feeling alienated by everyone around him, especially by his peers, Hedayat's last published work, The Message of Kafka, bespeaks melancholy, desperation and a sense of doom experienced only by those subjected to discrimination and repression.

Hedayat travelled and stayed in India from 1937 until 1939. In Bombay he completed and published his most enduring work, The Blind Owl, whose writing he started as early as 1930 in Paris. The book was praised by many including Henry Miller and André Breton. It has been called "one of the most important literary works in the Persian language".

At the end of 1950, Hedayat left Iran for Paris. There, on 4 April 1951, he committed suicide by gassing himself in a small rented apartment on 37 Rue Championnet. He had plugged all the gaps in the windows and door with cotton and, so it wouldn’t burden anyone, he had placed the money (a hundred thousand francs) for his shroud and burial in his side wallet in plain view. He was buried at the division 85 of Père Lachaise cemetery. His funeral was attended by a number of intimate friends and close acquaintances, both Iranian and Frenchmen.(From Wikipedia)

Khosrow Sinai

Khosrow Sinai (Persian: خسرو سینایی , born 19 January 1941 in Sari, Iran) is an Iranian film director. His works are usually based on social documentations. He was the first Iranian film director to win an international prize after the Islamic revolution in Iran.He is also known as an Iranian scholar and has been awarded the prestigious 'Knights Cross of the Order of Merit of the Polish Republic'. (From Wikipedia)

Sima Bina

Sima Bina

A lifetime of dedicated work on Persian folk music has made Sima Bina a legendary characterin the history of Iranian music.

Her singing careerbegins at the age of 10 with a popular radio program for children. Her musicaltalent drives her into taking music more seriously. She studied and perfectedPersian classical music with some of the great masters, and when she attainedthe artistic maturity to decide on her musical path, she chose to devote herlife to reviving the folk music of her homeland.

The fascination for Iranian folk music and songs had been ignited by her father, her first music teacherand songwriter. But, ironically its development into a lifetime commitment coincidedwith a historical time when her musical activities were banned in her homeland. Sima, however, maintains that it was ablessing in disguise. She says, “Whenyou can’t perform, people are taken away from you. So your focus shifts moreseriously to what you search for in life.”

In more than thirtyyears, by traveling to some of the most remote places all over Iran, Sima Bina collectedan assortment of almost forgotten folk songs and melodies. By recomposing the folksongsand tunes for her performance, Sima has formed her own distinctive style in Iranianfolk music.

Since 1993 Sima Binahas accepted invitations to perform her music worldwide in prestigiousfestivals and organized concerts. The worldwide recognition her music receivestoday is the materialization of over forty years of her devotion to Iranianfolk music.

While pursuingIranian folksongs, Sima often came across a variety of ethnic lullabies whichshe added to her collected works. This collection finally led to her book, IranianLullabies in 2009. In this book, SimaBina not only shares her findings, her perception, the scores and visualexpression of the selected lullabies with mothers, she also presents fortyoriginal Iranian lullabies in four CDs in which her vocal is sometimes blended withthe singing of the mothers who had song the lullabies to her in different partsof Iran.

Sima continues topresent Iranian folksongs in World Music festivals and concerts, while furtherexploring hidden folksongs in the vast plateau of Iran. She is currently working on Balouch music andmaintains documenting her findings of Iranian folksongs and music. (Sima Bina's Official Website)